Gatorade will pay the NFL more than $45 million annually for the next eight years in what is the largest annual sponsorship deal in sports history, ESPN reported Monday.

It's quite a rise from 1968, when the sports drink giant paid the league $25,000 a year.

"I'm amazed at the number, but I'm sure glad they did it," ESPN quoted University of Florida's Dana Shires, one of four doctors at the school who invented the Gatorade formula in 1965 to help the school's dehydrated football players. "It's funny, considering at the time we weren't being driven by commercial interest."

Nextel's 10-year deal as NASCAR sponsor is actually a larger contract in terms of overall value. That deal is worth $30 million to $40 million per year in rights fees, plus $30 million to $40 million annually committed to marketing.

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